Sony removed PlayStation Camera from PS4 over price, believes exclusion not an issue

Sony has confirmed that it removed the PlayStation Camera from the PS4 box in order to keep costs low, but believes the exclusion isn’t an issue.

There’s a vast £80 difference between the PS4 and Xbox One price and that comes down to the PlayStation Camera, which Sony has decided to take out of the basic PS4 bundle.

Apparently Sony originally intended to include the PlayStation Camera, which offers voice and motion sensing technology similar to the Xbox One Kinect, with the PS4 but was told not to by those high up at Sony Computer Entertainment.

The PS4 camera was removed in order to keep the console below the £350 ($400) asking price and not lose too much money in the process.

Even at £349, Sony is still selling its console at a loss, but the company expects launch day recoup from PlayStation Plus subscriptions and launch title sales.

However, what’s most interesting is that Sony believes the PlayStation Camera exclusion isn’t an issue for the PS4.

“The vast majority of the audience that we speak to tells us that their primary wish is for the full controller interface and there’s not necessarily a huge emphasis being placed on camera interaction”, said Andrew House, SCE President and Group CEO.

House added that Sony may “adjust messaging” on the PlayStation Camera in the future, but cannot see how much demand there would be for the peripheral to be included in the PS4 bundle.

Microsoft is selling the Xbox One prepackaged with its revamped Kinect motion gaming peripheral, albeit for a higher £429 price tag.

With over 24 million of the Xbox 360 Kinect sold so far, the inclusion of Kinect and the company’s strong focus on the “all-in-one” console, it will be interesting to see how motion gaming benefits help initial Xbox One sales.

The PS4 release date has been set as November 29 in the UK, with the Xbox One release date occurring on November 22.

Guest

October 9, 2013, 7:23 pm

Sony's decision has confined the PS4 camera to be a meaningless and hardly used accessory, as developers simply won't bother designing anything to take advantage of it. Whether Kinect will end up being the same is a different debate - only time will tell on that one!

Rus74

October 10, 2013, 4:17 am

Well to be honest there has been little fanfare about PS3's Move when directly compared to the Kinect. The former being just a gimmick in the footsteps of the Wii which Sony itself didnt support after launch.

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